Members from the Orange County Board of Supervisors had tried in April 2017 to get Kelly to resign, due to the public and political climate similar to that surrounding Judge Arron Persky during his sentencing of Stanford Rapists Brock Turner. A recall effort is underway against Judge Persky as well.

​Orange County and Santa Clara County Judges have been openly accused of misusing the legal system in managing divorce and criminal cases, where counties have a monopoly. Complaints, ignored by state watchdogs have reached epidemic levels as parents are demanding protection of their children and as courts appear to be funding court budget deficits with middle class divorce cases.

County leaders have finally come to realize they have been rendered helpless when trying to deal with bad judges in their community legal systems. Orange County and Santa Clara County have been especially plagued with more than an appearance of corruption that includes local law enforcement and nefarious connections to DA offices that are in utter turmoil.

The media and the public, that had been largely asleep as courts took over communities, and slowly allowed bad judges, cronyism , financial misconduct and political corruption to seep into the two wealthiest counties in Northern and Southern California.

In Santa Clara County, a strong link has been made to judges Arron Persky, Vincent Chiarello and James Towery. These judges consistently rule in favor of wealthy white men in criminal and divorce cases and use bailiffs and court staff in a manner that obstructs justice and violates federal law. After years of complaints the county is reportedly under FBI and media investigations, similar to investigations that exposed Orange County judge crimes that caused the state to provide amnesty for traffic court cases. Orange County's DA's office is also under constant investigation, and Santa Clara County id coming in a close second after anonymous sources have leaked information to the media, related to prosecutorial misconduct.

Both OC and Santa Clara are being exposed in large part by divorce and probate litigants who are fed up with children being trafficked in custody cases and seniors being robbed of their lifetime savings in probate cases.

Not surprisingly the LA times broke the story on the Orange County Judge recall just two days after investigative reporters made media requests for one of the county's divorce cases, that is set for hearing on July 20th. The reporters are apparently investigating private judges, misuse of domestic violence, supervised visitation , attorney misconduct and reunification camps,